1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and a print control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is well known in printing of documents figures and etc., created using a computer application utilizing a printer, a printer driver which corresponds to the printer first converts the application data into print data before sending the information to the printer.
Among these printer drivers, the XPS driver provided by the Microsoft Corporation, receives application data in XPS data format, and then sends it to the printer after converting it into PDL format, or as it is, for printing.
Recently, the XPS driver has been developed and conducted research on, as a replacement of GDI driver. First, the XPS driver is explained as follows, while citing the following link which details the implementation method of XPS driver.
Print ticket and PrintCapabilities Support in Windows Printer drivers (Microsoft Corporation, 2006)
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/print/XPSDrv_Print Ticket.mspx
Application data (XPS) include not only the data related to documents and figures, but it also include the XML data which is called a print ticket related to the print setting; a print filter of the XPS driver generates the PDL according to the print ticket. Further, when inserting a print ticket into XPS, using the interface provided by the Configuration Module of preliminary XPS driver validation process is conducted.
Here, the validation process refers to the process of changing a print ticket with inconsistencies between the functions according its print setting into a print ticket without inconsistencies by eliminating the inconsistencies between the functions. As an example, even when a printer is comprised with a duplex printing (that is, printing on the both sides of a paper) function, when envelop size is set as the printing size, there are cases duplex printing cannot be executed.
In such a case, when the received print ticket for validation process has been assigned to duplex printing and page size is selected to envelop size simultaneously, the Configuration Module of XPS driver changes the configuration to simplex printing (that is, printing on a single side of a paper) and returns the data to the application.
In case XPS including a invalid print ticket, which is inputted from the application, the filter of the XPS driver is able to generate a consistence PDL as the result.
However, whether an application call the validation process is depends on the program construction, in real world printing situation it is not guaranteed that that an invalid print ticket is always inputted to the XPS driver. As an example, there may be unorthodox applications that write in the print ticket which has already been undergone the validation process, and input it directly to the XPS driver.
Further, one aspect of XPS is being a general document format such as PDF (registered trademark); therefore XPS may include print ticket which is not compatible with the subjected printer, and being outputted by the application as it is to the printer may also occur.
In case PDL is generated using such a print ticket, the printer may conduct incorrect operations. Therefore, in reality, preliminarily filter has to call the validation process and change the print ticket in to a consistence state, and then create the PDL.
Moreover, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-296063 discloses an invention of a system that conducts printing on a printer connected to the web server, according to the requests of Web clients, with a method to reduce the server access number and realize high-speed print setting when validation process is conducted.
However, in recent years print ticket of XPS drivers with support to multiple printers and digital multifunctional peripherals, the function description that should be written in is high, and proportional to the description size the inter-function conflicts and their complexity rises; therefore, the validation process time is increased.
The point that print ticket is written in XML is the main cause which consumes time within the validation process.
Similarly in conventional GDI driver the validation process is conducted; however in GDI driver print setting description is written in binary data format which is called DEV MODE, therefore the processing speed does not become a problem.
However, when print ticket is in XML text format the process consumes more time; therefore, the reduction of the performance time caused by it cannot be ignored.
Further, the number of filters used for processing the printing of XPS driver is not limited to one, it may be a plurality of filters attached in hybrid format; as the number of filters increases delay due to validation process becomes noticeable.
Moreover, the invention of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-296063, in system consist of Web server and clients, the server access number is reduced when validation process is conducted, here, alternative “conflict control information” is been used.
However, these “conflict control information” does not have the capacity to dissolute inconsistencies of the whole print setting, further, XPS driver primarily does not have a mechanism to receive print setting information expect for print ticket.